Should We Organise the Revolution?

Published:Vperyod, No. 7, February 25 (8), 1905.

      Published according to the text inVperyod.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 8,

      pages167-176.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor LaskerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Ithappened a long, long time ago, more than a year ago. According to the
testimony of the not unknown German Social-Democrat, Parvus, “fundamental
differences” had arisen in the Russian Party. It had become the
primary political task of the party of the proletariat to combat the
extremes of
centralism, the idea of “giving orders” to the workers from some
obscure Geneva and the over-estimation of the idea of an organisation of
agitators, of an organisation of leaders. Such was the deep, firm, and
unshakable conviction of the Menshevik Parvus, expressed in his weekly German
news-sheetAus der Weltpolitikfor November 30, 1903.

Itwas pointed out at the time to the estimable Parvus (see Lenin’s letter to
the editors ofIskra,

			    December 1903[1])

that he was the victim of a
piece of scandal-mongering, that what he took for fundamental differences were
at bottom mere squabbles, and that the shift in the newIskra’sideas,
which was becoming noticeable, was a shift towards opportunism. Parvus fell
silent, but his “ideas” on over-estimating the importance of an
organisation of leaders were taken up and worked to death by the new-Iskrists.

Fourteenmonths went by. The disruptive work of the Mensheviks within the Party
and the opportunist nature of their propaganda became perfectly clear. January
9, 1905, fully revealed the vast reserve of revolutionary energy possessed by
the proletariat, as well as the utter inadequacy of Social-Democratic
organisation. Parvus came to his senses. He wrote an article inIskra,
No. 85, which, in
fact, was avolte-facefrom the new ideas of the opportunistnewIskrato the ideas of the revolutionary oldIskra.“There was a hero,” Parvus exclaims, referring to Gapon, “but no
    political leader, no programme of action, no organisation.... The lack of
    organisation produced tragic results.... The masses are disunited,
    everything is without plan, there is no coalescing centre, no guiding
    programme of action.....   The movement has declined for lack of a coalescing
    and guiding organisation.” And Parvus proposes the slogan which we
    suggested in issue No. 6 ofVperyod—“Organise the

			  Revolution!”[2]The lessons of the revolution have convinced Parvus that “under
    present political conditions we cannot organise the hundreds of
    thousands” (the reference is to the masses ready for
    revolt). “But,” he says, repeating with good reason an idea expressed
    long ago inWhat Is To Be Done?, “we can create an
    organisation that would serve as a combining ferment, and, at the moment of
    revolution, rally the hundreds of thousands to its side. We must organise
    workers’ circles which shall have a clearly defined task, namely, to prepare
    the masses for the uprising, to rally them to our side at the time of the
    uprising, and to launch the uprising when the slogan is issued.”

Atlast! we exclaimed with relief, when we came across these old truths buried
amid the rubbish of the newIskra. At last the revolutionary instinct
of a functionary of the proletarian party has prevailed, if only temporarily,
overRabocheye Dyeloopportunism. At last we hear the voice of a
Social-Democrat who does not cringe before the revolution’s rearguard but
fearlessly points to the need for supporting the van of the revolution.

Thenew-Iskrists, of course, could not agree with Parvus. “We do not share
all the views expressed by Comrade Parvus,” says the editors’ note.

Weshould say not! Catch them “sharing” views which hit out at all
the opportunist nonsense they have been spewing for the last eighteen months!

“Organisethe Revolution!” But have we not our wise Comrade Martynov, who
knows that a revolution is caused by a complete change in social relations, that
a revolution cannot be timed? Martynov will point out to Parvushis mistake and prove that even if the latter had in mind the organisation of
the vanguard of the revolution, it is nevertheless a “narrow” and
noxious “Jacobin” idea. Besides, our wise Martynov has a
Tryapichkin[4]on a string in the shape of Martov, who is capable of
rendering his teacher more profound and who can well substitute the slogan“Unleashthe Revolution!” for the slogan “Organise the
Revolution!” (see No. 85; the author’s italics).

Yes,dear reader, this is the slogan we are given inIskra’sleading
article. These days, apparently, it is enough to “unleash” one’s
tongue for a free chatter-process, or for the process of chatter, in order to be
able to write leading articles. The opportunist invariably requires slogans
that, on closer scrutiny, are found to be nothing but high-sounding phases,
nothing but decadent word-jugglery.

“Organise,and again organise!” Parvus urges, for all the world as if he
had turned Bolshevik. He does not understand, poor fellow, that organisation is
aprocess (Iskra, No. 85, as well as all the previous numbers of the
newIskra, particularly the magnificentfeuilletonsof the
magnificent Rosa). He does not know, poor devil, that according to the whole
spirit of dialectical materialism, tactics are as much a process as organisation
is. Like a “conspirator” he runs about with his
organisation-as-plan. Like a “utopian”, he imagines that one can
simply up and organise the thing offhand at some, God forbid, Second or Third
Congress.

The“Jacobin” Pillars of Hercules this Parvus talks him self up to!
“To launch the uprising when the slogan

is is sued”—imaginethat! It
is even worse than the idea of “timing” the uprising, which has been
exploded by our redoubtable Martynov. Really, Parvus ought to take a lesson or
two from Martynov. He should readIskra, No. .62; the leading article
will tell him of the harmful“utopian”ideas about
preparing the insurrection, which were spread so prematurely in our Party in
1902 and 1904. He should read Axelrod’s foreword to “A Worker’s”
pamphlet to learn what “a deep-seated, harmful canker[sic!],
downright destructive to the Party”, Social-Democracy is threatened with
on the part of people who “pin all their hopes on spontaneous revolts of
the most backward, least class-conscious, and positively uncivilised [!]
elements of the masses”.

Parvusadmits that it is impossible at present to organise the hundreds of
      thousands, and he considers it our primary task “to create an
      organisation that would serve as a combining ferment”. How can the
      new-Iskrists help squirming when such things appear in the columns of
      their paper? Obviously, an organisation that will serve as a combining
      ferment is simply an organisation of professional revolutionaries, at the
      mere mention of which our new Iskrists go off into a swoon.

Weare grateful indeed toIskrafor its leading article, which it has
printed alongside Parvus’s. How marked is the contrast between this empty,
muddled phrase-mongering of the tail-ender and the clear, distinct, forthright,
and bold revolutionary slogans of the oldIskra.Is it not sheer
bombast to say that “the policy of confidence is quitting the stagenever againto fool Russia or Europe”? As a matter of fact, any issue
of a European bourgeois newspaper shows that this fooling is still being carried
on with success. “Moderate Russian liberalism has been dealt its death-blow.” It
is childish political naivete to believe liberalism dead when it is merely
trying to be “politic” and to lie low. Liberalism is very much
alive, it has taken on a new lease of life. Indeed, it is now on the threshold
of power. The reason it is lying low is that it wants to make its bid for power
at the right moment with the greatest certainty of success and the least
risk. For this reason it is so assiduously making up to the working class. One
must be hopelessly short sighted to take this flirtation (a hundred times more
dangerous for being practised at the moment) seriously and to declare
boastfully that “the proletariat—the liberator of the country, the
proletariat—the vanguard of the whole nation, has now had itsheroic
role recognisedby the public opinion of the progressive elements of the
liberal-democratic bourgeoisie.” Gentlemen of the newIskra, when will
you under stand that the liberal bourgeoisie acknowledges the proletariat as
herofor the very reasonthat this proletariat, though dealing a blow
at tsarism, is not yet strong enough, not yet Social-Democratic enough, towinfor itself the kind of freedomitwants. When will you
understand that what we must do is not to boast about the present bowing and
scraping of the liberals, but to warn the proletariatagainst it and show up what lies behind it. You do not see that? Then look at
what theindustrialists, merchants, and stockbrokers are sayingabout
the necessity of a constitution. How plainly these declarations speak of the
death of moderate liberalism! The liberal windbags prate about the heroism of
the proletarians, while the industrialists weightily and imperiously demand a
skimpy constitution— that is how matters stand,

			   dear “leaders”![3]

Butnothing can compare withIskra’sarguments on the question of
arming. “The work of arming the proletariat and systematically building up
the organisation which shall guarantee that the people’s attack upon the
government shall take place simultaneously everywhere” is declared to be a
“technical” (?!) job. And we, of course, are above such trivialities
as technique, we go to the root of things. “Important though they are
(the ’technical’ jobs),it is not upon them that our efforts should be
concentratedin preparing the masses for revolt.... All the efforts of the
underground organisations will count for nothing if they fail to arm the people
with the one indispensable weapon—asense of the burning necessity to
attack the autocracy and to arm for the purpose.It ison propaganda
among the masses to arm themselves for the purpose of revoltthat we should
concentrate our efforts.” (The italics in the last two passages are the
author’s.)

Thisis indeed a profound way of stating the issue, nothing like the
narrow-minded Parvus, who almost reached the point of
“Jacobinism”. The crux of the matter is not in the work of arming or
in the systematic building up of the organisation, but in arming the people with
a sense of the burning necessity to arm. What a painful feeling ofshame for Social-Democracy comes upon one at the sight of these philistine
      platitudes, which seek to drag our movement back! To arm the people with a
      sense of the burning necessity to arm is the constant, common duty of the
      Social-Democrats always and everywhere, and it can be applied equally to
      Japan as it can to England, to Germany as it can to Italy. Wherever there
      are oppressed classes struggling against exploitation, the doctrine of the
      socialists, from the very start, and in the first place, arms them with a
      sense of the burning necessity to arm, and this“necessity”is present when the labour movementbegins.Social-Democracy has only to make this burning necessity a
    conscious one, to bring home to those who are conscious of it the need for
    organisation and planned action, the need for considering the whole
    political situation. Dear Editor ofIskra!Please drop in at any
    meeting of German workers and see the hatred towards, let us say, the
    police, that burns in the faces there; what bitter sarcasms and clenched
    fists you will hear and see there! What is the force that holds in check
    this burning necessity to mete out summary justice to the bourgeoisie and
    its servitors who ill-use the people? It is the force of organisation and
    discipline, the force of consciousness, the consciousness that individual
    acts of assassination are absurd, that the hour for the serious
    revolutionary struggle of the people has not yet struck, that the political
    situation is not ripe for it. That is why, under such circumstances, no
    socialist will ever bid the people arm, but he will always make it his duty
    (otherwise he is no socialist, but a mere windbag) to arm them with a sense
    of the burning necessity to arm and attack the enemy. However, the
    conditions in Russia today differ from these everyday conditions of work;
    therefore, the revolutionary Social-Democrats, who until now have never
    issued a call to arms but have always equipped the workers with a sense of
    the burning necessity to arm—therefore, the revolutionary
    Social-Democrats, following the initiative of the revolutionary workers,
    havenowissued the slogan,To arms!At such a time, when
    this slogan has at last been issued,Iskradelivers itself of the
    statement that the main thing is not arming, but the burning necessity to
    arm. What is this but sterile intellectualist logic-chopping and hopeless
    Tryapichkin-ism? Are not these people draggingthe Party back, away from the pressing tasks of the revolutionary vanguard to
the contemplation of the proletariat’s “posterior”? This unbelievable
vulgarisation of our tasks is due not to the individual qualities of one or
other Tryapichkin, but to their entire position, which has been so inimitably
formulated in the catchwords organisation-as-process and
tactics-as-process. Such a position in itself necessarily condemns a man to
fear all definite slogans, to shy at all “plans”, to back away from
bold revolutionary initiative, to philosophise and chew the cud, to be in fear
of running too far ahead—and this at a time when we Social-Democrats are
obviously lagging behind the proletariat in revolutionary activity. Truly the
dead are clutching at the living; the dead theories ofRabocheye Dyelolie like a dead hand upon the newIskratoo.

Letus considerIskra’sarguments regarding “the politically
leading role of Social-Democracy as the vanguard of the class destined to
emancipate the nation”. “We can neither attain that role,” we are
told, “nor firmly establish our title to it even if we take over full
control of the technical organisation and conduct of the uprising.” Think of it!
We cannot attain the role of vanguard even if we succeed in taking full control
of the conduct of the uprising! And these people presume to speak of vanguard!
Theyfearhistory will impose upon them the leading role in the
democratic revolution, and they areterrifiedat the thought of having
“to conduct the uprising”. The thought lurks at the back of their
minds—only they do not yet dare to voice it outright in the columns ofIskra—thatthe Social-Democratic organisationmust not“conduct the uprising”, that it must not strive to take full control
over the revolutionary transition to the democratic republic. They scent in
this, these incorrigible Girondists of socialism, monstrous
Jacobinism.[5]They
do not understand that the harder we strive to take full control of the conduct
of the uprising, the greater will our share in the undertaking be, and that the
greater this share is, the less will the influence of the anti-proletarian or
non-proletarian democrats be. They are determined to be at the tail-end; they
have even invented a philosophy of their own to prove that the tail-end is the
right place for them. Martynov has actually begun to expound this philosophy,and tomorrow, no doubt, he will dot the i’s in the columns ofIskra.

Letus try to follow the argument step by step:

“Theclass-conscious proletariat, governed by the logic of the spontaneous
process of historical development, will utilise for its own purposes all the
elements of organisation, all the elements of ferment which the eve of the
revolution creates....”

Fine!But to utiliseallelements means to assumefullleadership.Iskradefeats its own purpose and, realising this, hastens
to add:

“...whollyundismayed by the fact that· all these elements rob it of a
share in the technical leadership of the revolution itself and thus
involuntarily help to carry our demands to the most backward sections of the
masses.”

Canyou make anything of this, dear reader? To utiliseallelements,undismayedby the fact that they rob us of a share in theleadership?!But, hold on, gentlemen, ifwereally utilise all
elements, if it is reallyourdemands that are adopted by those we
utilise, then they do notrobus of the leadership, butacceptour leadership. If, on the other hand,allthese elements really rob us
of the leadership (and of course not only “technical” leadership,
because to separate the “technical” side of a revolution from its
political side is sheer nonsense), then it is not we who utilise them, but they
us.

“Weshould be only too glad if, following the priest who popularised among
the masses our demand for the separation of the Church from the State, if,
following the monarchist workers’ society which arranged the popular procession
to the Winter Palace, the Russian revolution would find it self the richer by a
general, who would be the first to lead the masses in the last fight against the
tsar’s troops, or by a government official who would be the first to proclaim
the formal overthrow of the rule of the tsars.”

Yes,we too should be glad of it, but we should not want a feeling of joy over
pleasantprospectsto overshadow our sense of logic. What is meant by
theRussian revolutionfinding itself the richer by a priest or a
general? What is meant is that the priest or the general will become an adherentor leader of the revolution. These “tyros” may be fully or not
quite fully conscious adherents of the revolution. In the latter event (which is
the more probable with tyros) we must deplore, not welcome, their lack of
consciousness anddo our utmost to cure and fill this lack.As long as
we leave this undone, as long as the masses follow a leader who is lacking in
consciousness, we have to admit that it is not the Social-Democrats who utilise
these elements, but vice versa. Yesterday’s priest, general, or government
official who becomes an adherent of the revolution, may be a prejudice-ridden
bourgeois democrat, and insofar as the workers will followhimthe
bourgeois democrats will be “utilising” the workers. Is this clear
to you, gentlemen of the newIskra?If it is, then why do youfearthe assumption of leadership by the fully conscious (that
is, Social-Democratic) adherents of the revolution? Why do you fear lest a
Social-Democratic officer (I purposely select an analogous example) and member
of the Social-Democratic organisation assume, “completely take
over”, the functions and tasks of your hypothetical general at the
initiative and on the instructions of that organisation?

Toreturn to Parvus. He concludes his excellent article with the excellent
advice to get rid of the disorganisers by “throwing them
overboard”. To get rid of the disorganisers is, as the items in our Party
News column show,[6]the most impassioned and emphatic slogan of the
majority of the Russian Social-Democrats. Precisely, Comrade Parvus, they must
be “thrown overboard” in the most ruthless fashion, and the throwing
must start with those heroes of the Social-Democratic press who have,
been sanctioning disruption by their organisation-as-process and
organisation-as-tendency “theories”. The thing is not
merely to talk of
it, but todoit. We must convene immediately a congress of all Party
workers who wish to organise the Party. We must not confine ourselves to
persuasion and to appeals, but must put a direct and inexorable ultimatum to
all who hesitate, to all who waver, vacillate, and doubt:
“Make your choice!” From the first issue of our newspaper we have sounded
that ultimatum on behalf of the Editorial Board ofVperyod, on behalf
of the mass of Russian Party workers who have been driven to intense
exasperation by thedisorganisers. Make haste, then, and throw them overboard, comrades, and let us
      settle down to the work of organisation with a hearty good will. Better a
      hundred revolutionary Social-Democrats who have accepted
      organisation-as-plan than a thousand intellectuals of the Tryapichkin
      tribe who prattle about organisation-as-process.

[1]See present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 122-23.—Ed.

[2]See pp. 148-57 of this volume.—Ed.

[3]The above lines bad been written when we received from the liberal camp
the following information, which is not without interest. The
St. Petersburg special correspondent of the German bourgeois-democratic
newspaperFrankfurter Zeitung(February 17, 1905) quotes aliberal St. Petersburg journaliston the political situation:
“The liberals would be fools to let a moment like the present slip by. The
liberals now hold all the trumps, forthey have succeeded in hitching
the workers to their cart, whereas the government has no one, since
the bureaucracy does not give anyone a chance to get ahead.”  What sublime
simplicity must be reigning in the newIskrafor them to be
writing about the death of liberalism at such a moment!—Lenin

[4]Tryaptchkin—atype of unscrupulous journalist
mentioned in
 Gogol’s comedyThe Inspector-General.

[5]TheMountainand the Gironde—designation of
the two political groupings of the bourgeoisie at the time of the French
bourgeois revolution towards the end of the eighteenth century. The Mountain,
or Jacobins, was the name given to the more consistent representatives of the
revolutionary class of the time, the bourgeoisie,who advocated the abolition of absolutism and feudalism. Unlike the Jacobins,
the Girondists wavered between revolution and counter-revolution, and entered
into deals with the monarchy.

Lenincalled the opportunist trend in Social-Democracy the “Socialist
Gironde”, and the revolutionary Social-Democrats—proletarian
Jacobins, the “Mountain”. After the R.S.D.L.P. split into Bolsheviks
and Mensheviks, Lenin frequently stressed that the Mensheviks were the
Girondist trend in the working-class movement.

[6]Lenin has in view the item “Disorganisation of the
Local Commit tees” and the resolutions of the Minsk and Odessa groups of
the Social-Democrats published inVperyod, No. 7, February 21(8),
1905,
 in the Party News column.